UAE vows retaliation for Houthi-claimed attack, questions emerge over

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The attack on Abu Dhabi claimed by Yemen’s Houthi militants Monday threatens to derail fragile efforts at rapprochement between Gulf Arab states and Iran, even as clear attribution for the strikes — which caused fires and fuel tanker explosions that killed three people — is yet to be fully confirmed.

It also could complicate the already challenging negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, the latter of which backs the Houthis financially and militarily, on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The UAE’s government has pledged to hold those responsible for the attack — suspected to have been carried out by drone — to account. Already on Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition that’s been at war in Yemen since 2015 began carrying out airstrikes on camps and buildings in the capital of Sanaa belonging to Houthi militants, the coalition reported. The strikes around the Houthi-held city have so far killed around 20 people, a Houthi official told Reuters.

But many regional analysts point to what they believe is likely the directing force behind the Houthis’ attack: Iran. The UAE has been a part of the coalition fighting the Houthis since 2015, and though it significantly reduced its forces from the country in 2019, it still trains and supports anti-Houthi groups.

“I think the issue we’ve got to determine, first of all, was it the Houthis directly,” Angus Blair, professor of practice at the University of Cairo in Egypt, told CNBC on Tuesday. “Nothing would have happened without Tehran’s consent or direct engagement.”

Iran’s foreign ministry, commenting on what it described only as “recent Yemen-linked developments,” said Tuesday that “the solution to any regional crisis is not to resort to war and violence.” Its spokesman did not mention the Houthis or the UAE attack, according to Reuters.

While blaming Iran still remains speculative, Iran and the Gulf Arab states support opposing sides of numerous regional conflicts including those in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of attacking its oil infrastructure and of providing Yemen’s Houthi rebels with missiles used to attack the kingdom, which Tehran has denied. 

Blair and others cite historical example to back up their suspicion. Iran has provided missiles and drones to the Houthis for several years, backing them as part of a broader proxy war with Saudi Arabia, which spearheaded an aerial assault on Yemen beginning in early 2015 after the rebel movement overran Yemen’s Saudi-backed government.